I have a seroma, HELP.

My rny wls was 21 days ago and for about a week, I've had considerable pain below my 7 in*****ision and a little to the side. I was able to get a cat scan today and was just informed that I have a seroma. They described it as a baseball size mass of blood left over from the surgery. My surgeon will surely call me tomorrow, but can anyone give me a heads up on this seroma, as I am in the dark. How serious is it and how do they treat it. Thank you kindly for any replies. Pat

Seroma is blood serum which has collected in the tissues. This can happen during WLS or other kinds of surgeries. While annoying, it is not a serious complication. Sometimes it resolves on it's own over several months, but to get rid of it quicker, sometimes the surgeon will remove it via aspiration, i.e. draining it with syringe.

Hi Aliana, You are the only one *****sponded to me and I am most grateful. You have eased my mind so much. I wonder if the draining would be very painful? I am waiting for my surgeon to get back to me and then I'll know more. Best wishes to you. Pat

While getting anything drained via needle syringe is not comfortable, I would imagine the relief it will bring will far outweigh a momentary "stick." Sometimes a topical anesthetic is given for things like this. Ask your surgeon if that can be done for you. Keep me posted on how this goes for you, ok?

Pat, I haven't had my surgery yet, so I can't help with your dilemna. But, can I offer a suggestion? Why don't you pose this question on the main message board? That board would probably bring you many many more responses. I just recently found this board, and while it is informative, I myself, would post any question, problem or complication question on the main board since everyone seems to go there. That's what I would do Love Lori

Lori, thanks for the good advice. Actually I am such a scatterbrain. I didn't realize that my posting wasn't going to show on the main board. I kept looking and couldn't find it. I will take your advice. I'm glad you decided to go ahead and take good care of yourself and have the wls. Very best of luck to you friend. Sincerely, Pat

Pat, I can give you first hand and current feedback on this topic.Generally it is not a seroius matter, they are right. However it is better to get rid of it. The day before yesterday I had my seroma removed under local anesthesia. It developed about 6 weeks post op, but my surgeon had preferred that it dissipate by itself. It took five months to come to an understanding with him to remove it. Like any minor surgery, he felt that if it dissapated, it would better, since there is always some risk in anty surgical procedure. If I had been able to have it done much sooner, I would have. I went through five months of changing my patch 3 or 5 times a day. I took antibiotics as a safety measure, {Prescribed by my primary doctor}. The procedure took about 30 minutes, he did it in his office. He went through an existing drain incision and cleaned out an area, {under the skin} about 6 inches in diameter. The openning left is about 1 cm diameter and 5 cm deep. we are packing daily. BUT the difference is that it is healing from the inside out and I feel very confident that it will heal properly in about 2 weeks. He found a suture in there that he sent to the lab, I do not know if it was a contributing factor to the wound draining. I hope that this information will be of help. feel fee to e-mail if you have any questions. Joe Gonzalez